Aug 2, 2006

Blogger arrested and jailed for defying Grand Jury

"A freelance journalist and blogger was jailed on Tuesday after refusing to turn over video he took at an anticapitalist protest here last summer and after refusing to testify before a grand jury looking into accusations that crimes were committed at the protest.

The freelancer, Josh Wolf, 24, was taken into custody just before noon after a hearing in front of Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court. Found in contempt, Wolf was later moved to a federal prison in Dublin, Calif., and could be imprisoned until next summer, when the grand jury term expires, said his lawyer, Jose Luis Fuentes."

This sucks big time. The premise is that the protesters committed an illegal act:

"A smoke bomb or a firework was also put under a police car, and investigators are looking into whether arson was attempted on a government-financed vehicle.

Wolf, who posted some of the edited video on his Web site, www.joshwolf.net, and sold some of it to local television stations, met with investigators, who wanted to see the raw video.(Click here for more on his role in the video blogging world.) But Wolf refused to hand over the tapes, arguing that he had the right as a journalist to shield his sources."

I am going to follow this story up later. I just read it.

Its later...The SF Chron has a better writeup which backgrounds Josh Wolf. He is 24 years old, and states none of his video contains footage of the alleged arson attempt on the police car. Neither do the outtakes.